


Madam Pomfrey's Hungarian Vacation

by lirin



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: snape100, F/M, Quadruple Drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-08
Updated: 2011-08-08
Packaged: 2017-10-22 09:49:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lirin/pseuds/lirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Madam Pomfrey is looking for somebody who can brew Wolfsbane. Written for snape100 Challenge #391: "<a href="http://snape100.livejournal.com/1245821.html">Nineteen Years Later</a>".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Madam Pomfrey's Hungarian Vacation

“I’m sure you’re wondering why I called you here, Poppy,” the Headmistress says. “I have finally found a new Care of Magical Creatures professor; Romulus Asena agreed this morning to accept the position. Unfortunately, he is a werewolf, and Professor Slughorn is unable to brew the Wolfsbane potion. I know of nobody in England who can.

“However, there are rumors that someone in Hungary knows how to brew it. I want you to find him or her, and convince them to brew the Wolfsbane once a month for Romulus. Will you go?”

Poppy agrees. She has not travelled in years.

*****

Three weeks, four red herrings, five false trails, and thirty-six Hungarian villages later, Madam Pomfrey is ready to give up—perhaps it would be simpler to return to Hogwarts and volunteer for Asena’s job herself.

At her lodgings, the innkeeper says she has a visitor waiting in her room. Probably another lead. Poppy wants to eat her dinner in peace, not talk to another farmer who saw a wolf hanging around a witch’s hut and jumped to conclusions.

Grumpy and tired, she is not at all prepared to instead encounter the man who stands as she crosses the threshold.

“Severus?”

*****

“I hear you’re looking for someone to brew Wolfsbane Potion,” he says, infuriatingly, as if he had seen her just last week instead of disappearing for almost two decades.

“Severus, you’re alive!” Poppy replies, still flustered.

An eyebrow raises. “Obviously. So do you need someone or not?”

“Then are you the person the rumors are of?”

“Yes. It’s a source of income, and it leaves most of the month free for other experiments. However, if I had expected brewing Wolfbane to cause someone from Hogwarts to come track me down, I might have chosen something else.”

She glares at him.

*****

They both know she has to ask. “Why didn’t you come back?”

The answer is equally expected. “What was there to come back to? A world that doesn’t need me anymore? People who never liked me?”

“Does it make any difference,” she asks, “if I say I always liked you? And if the world doesn’t need you, then why did I come find you? I know you wouldn’t come back if the Headmistress asked, and certainly not if Mr. Potter asked, but will you come for me?”

He pauses, then bows. “Perhaps—I could give it a try. For you.”


End file.
